


Running Up That Hill

by CurioChiroptera



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 21:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15938201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurioChiroptera/pseuds/CurioChiroptera
Summary: Based on a prompt by bluandorange.  Hanzo is wholly unsuited to fulfill the role of heir fo the Shimada clan.  His brother, Genji, on the other hand, seems like he was made for it.  What if there was a way to swap places?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by bluandorange, whose work you can see at bluandorange.tumblr.com

The man smiled. It was the kind which reminded Hanzo that other species smile as a sign of aggression; not pleasure or happiness. A predator’s grin.

It didn’t stop him.

“I was told that you could help me. Is it true?”

For Hanzo, believing in what others would consider extraordinary was much simpler. When one came from a lineage of those who shared their bodies with the spirits of dragons, it made, ‘impossible,’ carry a little less gravity. While his tutelage had, of course, included an exhaustive study of the Kojiki, legends, myths, and ghost stories from his homeland, he had also been made to read up on a number of others from all over the world. Comparing and contrasting with different beliefs, practices, and stories, his tutors had told him, would allow for better understanding of the ones he’d grown up with. Where were commonalities? Where were differences? What could one learn from these things?

Hanzo was bored by most of this, but always keenly interested in stories about tricksters. He loved the trouble they caused. He loved the complete disregard for authority they demonstrated, and longed for the freedom to do the same. Anansi, Coyote, Kitsune, Puca.

And Raven.

“Perhaps. I suppose it depends on what you consider to be, ‘help.’ What do you have for me?”

It wasn’t unusual for Soujiro to take his sons traveling with him on business. This trip to the Pacific Northwest of the United States was one that Hanzo made before. The clan had holdings all over the world, and it was important for his sons to learn from his example and make an effort to understand local customs and practices. It was a cheap way to earn trust and respect from their business partners. It reminded Hanzo of his nights skipping between bars and clubs and trying to get people to open up to him; people like you better if you’re drinking what they’re drinking, dancing to the songs they dance to, mirroring their body language.

_I am like you. I admire you. I want the same things that you want. How fine and fitting for us to help one another._

And wasn’t that just Hanzo with his trickster fixation?

He hadn’t known quite what to expect, wandering out into the mist and the cedars, the sound of grey waves crashing on grey shores whispering their grey mysteries to each other in the distance. Perhaps a great, black bird. Perhaps a spirit, much like his dragons. Perhaps nothing at all besides a bellyful of disappointment.

Instead, he had found a man.

He was tall and lean with russet skin, high cheekbones and eyes that were not so much dark as they were glittering slivers of night gazing out at him. His dark hair was hung with shining black feathers, and little beads that Hanzo had first thought were amber, but upon closer inspection glowed with an inner luminescence that was hard to look at; little drops of sunlight. About his shoulders was clasped a woolen black blanket with a red border upon which was sewn, also in vivid red, a depiction of a raven with a round object clasped in its beak, edged all in shimmering abalone and mother-of-pearl buttons. In his voice there was silver, and his mouth, not his lips, never stopped _smiling_. It was as though he was endlessly amused by some joke or jest woven secretly into every stitch of the world around him; including Hanzo.

Swallowing around a lump in his throat, the heir to the Shimada empire reached into the shoulder bag he and withdrew the offering he had brought; what he had thought may have summoned the trickster in the first place. A handful of clam and chiton shells, hemlock needles, a little canoe carved in cedar, and a tiny, blown glass bottle of fresh water.

For a long moment, the Raven stared at what was offered, before he let loose a peal of silvery laughter that rang up and down Hanzo’s spine and echoed in his head. He felt his cheeks burn with shame as Raven’s merriment subsided and he waved a hand to dismiss the offering.

“You think I want your _trinkets_ , little dragon? No, no. If I wanted those things, I could get them myself. It would not be difficult. Although, you aren’t a bad hand at carving, and you’ve clearly done your homework. I am flattered you went to the trouble.” Clearing his throat, he gestured to Hanzo, “Put those away and let us discuss what have you have brought to me. What is it that you _want_?”

That final word breathed on the ember of desire within him, warming and brightening him from its place nestled in his heart.

Slipping the little objects back into his bag, he sighed and tried to meet the trickster’s eyes.

“As firstborn, I am the heir to the Shimada clan. But…it is not what I want. I just want to be _free_. Every part of my life is dictated to me.” His jaw set. “Any attempt to claim even a _little_ piece of my life for myself is met with scorn and hysterics from the clan elders. They speak of the power I’m meant to inherit, but every day it feels as if I am bearing up a heavier weight. I know it won’t be long until it crushes me and I cannot stand it!”

Almost growling, he tugged at his hair in exasperation.

“And as if that were not enough, it feels like the world is rubbing it my face with my younger brother.”

Leaning forward in interest, eyes glittering, Raven grinned. “How so?”

“He has _everything_!” The words came out more forcefully than Hanzo had expected, but that ember was flaring and he reveled in the purity of his anger. “He has our money, our power, our training and prestige; even his looks!” Running a hand over his own face, Hanzo shook his head. It was something he didn’t speak aloud, but felt with a keen resentment and self-loathing as if even his very body had betrayed him. His face was all austere angles and his body radiated power and authority with its broad shoulders and rigid posture. Without intending it, he projected a chilly gravitas to everyone around him. It felt all wrong; the wrong housing for a spirit that yearned for freedom and reveled in pleasure. And then there was Genji. Genji with that sweet face, amiable smile, lithe strength, and inviting eyes. Yet even with all of that, he was almost a caricature of stoic, samurai portentousness. It was _infuriating_. “All of these gifts he squanders. He does not grasp what he has been given.”

“What you wish you had been given,” Raven crooned, that grin widening. “I see.”

“I don’t want to carry this burden any longer. I am not suited to it, but…Genji. Genji would be able to bear up this mantle. He is everything the clan could want in an heir. If there was a way that...we could trade somehow.”

Hanzo could feel Raven’s gaze on him as if it were a tangible weight.

“Alright. I can give you what you want, little dragon.”

His heart skipping a beat, Hanzo took an involuntary step forward, breath quickening. “You can?”

“Simple enough a thing to do. And you are _sure_ of this?”

“Yes!” Just the thought of it…Hanzo could feel the gravity of expectation lessen. “Please. Whatever I must do in return—“

Another clangor of laughter.

“You still don’t understand, do you? Little dragon…you invoked a Raven to become a Sparrow. How could I _resist_ that? It is too delicious. Too _tempting_ a game to pass by. I could taste your desire when you came here. It marks you as _mine_.”

For the first time, trepidation clutched at Hanzo’s heart with chilly fingers.

“I don’t want trinkets or flattery or great deeds done in my name. You people are all I need. From the time I pulled you into the world from the clams and chitons, filled the sky with the sun and the moon and the stars, gave you the tides and the land and so many other fine things, I have needed nothing else to satisfy me. There is no greater amusement, no finer toy, than humanity. I gave you the world to see what you would do with it, and you have provided me with lifetimes of entertainment. I will happily grant your wish, fledgling, and ask only a single thing in return.”

“What…” He tried to gather his wits and words from the jumble of silver laughter and tantalizing promises. “What do you want?”

“Everything,” Raven said, reaching out to tap his forehead. “What else is there to want?”


	2. Chapter 2

“This is the last time I can tell you this story.”

Yuzu flavored sake hung heavy on Hanzo’s breath as he spoke. The elder Shimada had always had more of a sweet tooth than his younger brother. Genji remembered with a touch of exasperation the way he would gobble up anmitsu, cakes, parfaits, and taiyaki without a twinge of self-consciousness. There was nothing, it seemed, that couldn’t be improved by drowning it in syrup. All the same, he was making a truly heroic effort to single-handedly polish off a not inconsiderably sized bottle of liquor, foregoing the oden they had ordered completely.

“You are drunk,” Genji murmured, refilling the cup that was thrust to him by his brother.

“ _You_ need to listen,” Hanzo replied, his eyes flashing. He took a second cup and filled it for Genji, pressing it to his brother. “And drink.”

Genji favored him with an indulgent smile, letting out a breath through his nose before knocking back the tart-sweet liquor. “Alright, Hanzo. I am listening.”

Satisfied, Hanzo calmed, his shoulders relaxing, gaze dropping to the cup in his hands.

“As with all in the line of dragon masters, the night you were born, there was a storm. The wind and the rain called your name in words only our mother could understand, and she echoed that cry so it rang through every corner of Hanamura like a thunderclap.”

Looking up, Hanzo met his brother’s eyes, fire in his own.

“ _Genji_.

“It is thought that the stronger the storm at the birth of a Shimada, the stronger the dragon will be that they will house in their heart. That storm was the first thing I remember in my life with any clarity, and it shook the world around me at its very foundations. The sky boiled with green clouds rippling with lightning. Wind howled like a wounded animal, trees trembled as if they were penitents facing judgment, and thunder rattled every door in its frame; laughing at us for trying to keep it out. How foolish to try and shield ourselves from something that already held our souls in the palm of its hand. We were at the mercy of the storm that was coming to claim _you_.

“I thought that everything was ending. Nothing existed anymore except the storm, closing us off from the world with a wall of wind from the South that screamed your name.”

“Were you frightened?” Genji asked. He was supposed to. It was their own little script for a tale Hanzo loved to tell and Genji loved to hear. He recalled being nestled close to him under the covers as children, sharing secrets in the dark when they were supposed to be asleep.

“Deathly so. I thought the manor would fall and crush everyone there. My cries were swallowed up by the storm as if it would steal even my last word on this earth and erase me completely.

“That was when father found me. As he closed a hand around my shoulder, he told me there was nothing to fear. When looking into the eyes of a storm, I was looking at no one else but myself; my kin. And he told me that I had a responsibility to that storm. To you.

“When we reached mother, the doctor was already tending to mother. But at the birth of a Shimada, there are things no doctor can care for; only family. There was a dragon in the storm that had come to claim you, it’s fury unfocused and destructive. It was for mother, father, and me to coalesce this power and guide it into your heart. That was then that I began to understand what it was to be a Shimada.”

Genji smiled fondly, eyes warm with nostalgia as he rested his chin on his hand. “And that is when you felt your dragons for the first time.”

“Yes.” Hanzo held his cup to be refilled, his brother obliging him. “The tempest was reaching its height. When the clap of thunder and flash of lightning happened together at once, your name ringing through the manor, my dragons answered. As the world around me fell away, I gave myself entirely to the wind and rain. I understood that the dragons were not _mine_ nor did I belong to _them_. We are not vessels – we are conduits; our family a nexus. We are the way in which those spirits move through this world. The way they can, for the brief span of our lives, experience it and understand it from a different point of view; a human one. In much the same way, we are touched by that which is beyond earthly bounds and better understand the world that hovers nearby, just out of our peripheral vision. It is a blessing and a responsibility from them and to each other. And as the conduit within you opened to accept that Northern storm, I knew that we needed to look after one another.

“As you came to us, the storm outside had ceased. But I knew that ever after, it would roil through you until you left this world to join the greater one to which all in our family must someday return.”

Hanzo quieted, the tender tone in his final words collapsing into a sadness written plain on his features, bowing his shoulders with its weight. As tears began to gather in his eyes, his hand trembling with the little sake cup clutched between his fingers, Genji felt his stomach twist. He began to reach over the table to his brother, his mouth starting to shape his name before Hanzo held up a hand abruptly.

“I have known of my responsibility to you and the clan.” His tone was confessional, free hand raking through his hair distractedly. “I know what I have been meant for and I have run from it at every turn. I am a coward and I have failed both you and our family. I have taken the blessing and scorned the responsibility. I am…I am not suited to the role in which I have been cast.”

“Hanzo –“

“ _No_.” The word fell between them heavily. “ _Listen_ to me, Genji. I was not meant for this. And you…your gifts are squandered as a second son. You are what the heir should be. And yet, you are fated to languish as you watch me make…make a _botch_ of this. And why? Because of pure, stupid luck! We have been cheated by fate. I am a disappointment, a failure. I cannot be anything else as matters stand. So, I am changing matters.”

Shaking his head, Genji plucked the sake cup from Hanzo’s hand, meeting no resistance. “What are you talking about?”

“I am setting things right. I am fixing what chance got wrong. It will be better this way. I know I have failed you before, but I will not fail you now. I am looking after both of us and putting us where we both need to be.”

“You are _drunk_ ,” Genji repeated, scratching at his chest before getting up to walk around the table and help his brother to his feet. “Come – let me take you to your room. We will be departing early tomorrow and you need time to sleep this off.”

Rising unsteadily, one of Hanzo’s hands found the lapels of his brother’s suit.

“Please, trust me.”

“Of course.”

“ _Say_ it,” Hanzo growled, his eyes embers in the dim.

“I trust you, Hanzo.”

Letting out his tension in a long sigh, leaning more heavily on his brother for support, the elder Shimada followed his lead without resistance. Genji had done this before. Hauling his brother out of bars, clubs, and love hotels wasn’t uncommon, and he was typically dispatched because he could be discrete. Hanzo never appreciated his efforts at the time, of course, but would usually thank him in the morning over many cups of water and coffee and handfuls of aspirin. He smiled ruefully to himself remembering their last foray into Roppongi, shifting Hanzo a bit to adjust his own shirt and open a few buttons. He felt oddly hot, skin warm to the touch beneath his fingertips. Had the sake been that strong? Genji never over-indulged, but he knew how to hold is liquor. Fast becoming dead weight in his arms, Genji gently lowered Hanzo to the floor, eyelids flickering at the intensity of the heat that pooled in his chest. Tugging his shirt open a bit more, he leaned against the hallway wall, breath catching as he revealed a reddened, almost infected looking circle of skin just above his sternum. Brow furrowed, he brushed his fingertips against the patch of skin, finding it slightly raised and feverishly warm. Pressing down upon its center, he was startled to find a tiny point of hardness – like bone beneath the skin. Before he had time to think very long on this, however, the point began to press back against his fingers.

Crying out, Genji’s hand jerked away, but the patch of skin continued to press forward, a tiny point at its center, something forcing its way out of his chest directly through the flesh and bone. Breathing rapid and shallow, he clawed off his shirt, watching with widening eyes as the skin grew thinner, translucent, before finally snapping as a bird’s beak forced its way through. Black and bloodless, a raven emerged from him with a croaking sound that reverberated through his bones. Pushing its way through bone and muscle, Genji could only make a weak, strangled sound in return as the gap the bird created widened, stretching as it finally broke free, leaving him to collapse onto the floor. Taking wing with a susurrus of dark feathers, the raven made a sound Genji could have sworn was _laughter_ before it departed from his senses, the young Shimada heir gripping the wound it left behind.

Gasping raggedly, he did his best to sit up, finding himself bizarrely lucid as he willed himself to look at the injury. He had expected a rush of blood and heat, but instead found icy water gushing out of the wound between his clutching fingers. Petrichor emanated from him, and as Genji drew back his hand, trembling and morbidly curious, wind began to howl out of him. It tore at his hair, rattled the fixtures in the hallway, and bit through him; a thousand frozen knives. Opening his mouth, he breathed static and ozone, his screams little more than another note in the tempest that ate away at him from the inside out, eager to be free of the thin skin that held it captive. He felt himself coming to pieces, dissolving into the wind and the rain.

It was the storm. The storm that defined him. The storm that called his name. 

_Hanzo_.


End file.
